After 5-6 years without a project, I missed working on a car. Cue the 1986 Turbo Z! The sweet digital dash had me hooked. I never thought much of the car as a teen, but the more I considered getting one, the more awesome it became. So I got one with zero knowledge about the Z world.

The car I bought is originally an auto and was in the middle of a manual swap when the owner lost interest. It was a nice'ish 20-footer at the right price, and I'm just a sucker for that two-tone paint.

I made the 4-hour trip out to Georgia, and the seller turns out to be a Z hoarder with 15+ other Z's laid up in his front yard. He had junk eeeverywhere but he was very enthusiastic and seemed knowledgable enough. The clearcoat was half buffed off in an abandoned re-spray idea, and while there was no rust, the frame rails and pinch welds were (not unexpectedly) mangled. Once I agreed to take the car, he had to rummage through piles and piles of parts in his garage gathering things for my car from memory. Not a good sign but whatever. He placed the engine in to the engine bay a few days prior for the sake of transportation. The transmission and other random bits went in my SUV. I drew blood about 10 minutes into ownership when I slipped on gravel trying to push the car up the trailer. Good times.

Once home, all I needed to do to drive it was finish the swap and add fluids. This was going to be a cheap putter-around project, and I'll be enjoying the wind, T-tops off, in no time.

Yeah, not by a long shot. I've quintupled my original budget. The car continues to be one thing after another, but I'm staying positive. After some time with the car and having never been in a Z, you can tell it was very special to Nissan. The details, the electronics, and other goodies just ooze coolness: the driver-adjustable dampers, the headrest crests, the dash, the crazy seats, etc. The 240SX had nothing on this. Judging from photos, even a Skyline's interior is comparatively dumpy






[Edited on July 21, 2025 at 11:17 AM. Reason : ]

7/21/2025 11:16:40 AM

Quote :

"I drew blood about 10 minutes into ownership"

7/21/2025 10:19:13 PM

nice!

looks like a fun project

7/22/2025 9:57:05 AM

two pics?

7/23/2025 3:40:49 PM

Early on, I dealt some of the usual headaches that come with a 40-year-old car: a locked brake caliper, rear brake pads, new Eibach Pro Kit springs with Koni yellows, brake fluid flush, etc

When I got around to checking out the "freshly-sealed" engine which simply needed to be installed and fluids added, I found... sludge and baked-in oil all over the valvetrain.



I pull the engine and disassemble everything, and I take the longblock to the machine shop. My original intention is to have them clean, machine, and assemble the bottom end. For the top end, just clean and machine and I will assemble. Well they didn't like that idea with all the clearances involved and convinced me to let them put the entire thing together. A week or two go by and we cannot find +0.020" hardware for the engine. The shop's standard practice is to bore no matter what the bores look like. You can go aftermarket forged or a mish-mash of Z32 (90'+ 300ZX) parts for +0.020, but I wanted to keep it as cheap and straightforward as possible. The shop is straight up Good Ole Boys. 1980's garage, dirt floor, no A/C, blocks sitting around EVERYWHERE, grease stains and prints on every surface, thousand-page machine reference books, cigarette smoke lingering in the air, etc. But I work with guys like this, and I can shoot the shit easily. They all come around just fine

Weeks goes by with no development on finding parts. I check FB marketplace for all my options: aftermarket pistons, running engines, etc. BOOM! Someone is selling a newly-shop-built VG30ET (my factory engine), fully-built internals + cams, along with some other project goodies. They include a 350Z transmission with adapter bellhousing and a ton of new parts:
Walbro fuel pump
Aeromotive FPR
Fidanza flywheel
McLeod clutch kit
Nistune ECU with harness
intercooler kit
high-dollar exhaust manifolds
3" downpipe
high-dollar intake manifold
42lb/hr (440cc/min) injectors
Turbosmart wastegate
etc

I jumped on it after considering the price for it all against the price of new pistons and rods (required) plus machine work. "Cheap" is out the window now. I retrieve all my parts from the machine shop and leave with a ~$100 invoice because they already line-bored the block. No problem.

It turns out I'd need to find a mounting solution for the clutch slave cylinder, fork pivot, etc and get a custom driveshaft to make the 350Z trans work, so I dismissed the idea pretty early on.

The project sits and sits for long spells because 1. family schedule 2. I'm lazy and always waiting for mild weather or the next excuse.

[Edited on July 24, 2025 at 12:35 PM. Reason : ]

7/24/2025 12:08:34 PM

Quote :

"sits and sits for long spells"

[Edited on July 24, 2025 at 12:16 PM. Reason : ]

7/24/2025 12:16:16 PM

Let's see that sweet digital dash.

7/24/2025 3:08:37 PM

bam!

7/25/2025 8:16:36 PM

My dash leather/rubber was cracked aaaall to hell. While the new engine sat idly on its stand, I removed the dash, neatly cut off about 80% of the rubber, walnut-blasted and painted the metal, and let a dash mat cover the rest.

Upon reinstalling, a little light bulb and its harness got caught between the dash and the windshield. When I tried to give the dash a little nudge, this happened FFFFFFFFFFFF



Replacing it is low-ish priority for now. I want to get the car running reliably first.

7/25/2025 8:23:54 PM

After months of procrastinating, I kick it in to high gear this Spring. After figuring out which clutch bits go on the car, I mount the flywheel, clutch, PP, etc. I have the car seller's used clutch kit, a brand new clutch kit I bought, a new clutch kit which came with the new engine, AND a 350Z clutch kit which also came with the new engine. Keep in mind that I'm taking the time to wire brush every bolt that I use from here on out.

I roll the car in to the car port, dust off all my gear, and get the engine in to the car. Cue all the associated difficulties and cussing.

Transmission time. No transmission jack means the trans is teeter tottering on the little 6" floor jack cup the entire time. Lots more cussing but it finally slides in. Whew, bolt it up and try the shifter! The shifter DOES NOT SHIFT. I can't even move it side to side. The slave cylinder pushes the PP back and forth as it should. Clutch in, I can turn the engine over by hand; clutch out, I can't. W T F I remove the transmission and recheck all the clutch components to make sure nothing is binding. I double check that I chose the correct parts; they're all good. Reinstall the trans; same thing. Fine, let's tear down the transmission:




FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKK YOOOOOUUUUU. Is that MF'ing fungus?! The damn shift selectors were seized together, among other things.

But it's a T5 transmission found in a bunch of other cars. It should be easy to find, right? Nope, it's got odd size shafts, spline counts, etc. After dismissing the idea of buying another 40-year old transmission for $500+, I study up on how to rebuild it. The gears themselves are in good shape: no shearing or chipping. $300 in parts later, it's rebuilt. It's notchy as hell to shift, but my old boss says his Foxbody is the same way. OK moving on.

I remount the trans. Reminder: the car was halfway through a manual swap. I grab the driveshaft and insert it in to the trans. THE YOKE DOESN'T FUCKING GO IN. It's the wrong god-damned driveshaft. Even if it did go in to the T5 trans, the diff end was different from my diff flange. Fine then, it had a bunch of slop anyways. $400 for a brand new one.

What a damn nightmare under the car.

[Edited on July 25, 2025 at 9:07 PM. Reason : ]

7/25/2025 9:00:02 PM